September 24, 2025
Hearts, by Hilma Wolitzer
I learned about Hearts, by Hilma Wolitzer (mother of Meg!), from a in the New York Times piece this summer on “18 Great Road Trip Books That Aren’t ‘On the Road’”, a feature that must have been a little inspired by The Road to Tender Hearts, by Annie Hartnett, one of my top reads of the season. The piece recommended Hearts for fans of Tiger Eyes, by Judy Blume; Fun Home, by Alison Bechdel; the work of Laurie Colwin. SIGN. ME. UP. Except then Wolitzer’s 1980 novel proved hard to come by, out of print, unavailable at the library. (You can buy it as an ebook though!) I ended up purchasing a secondhand copy from Alibris.com, springing a couple of bucks more for the hardcover “in good condition,” and am I ever glad I did, because it’s a First Edition, impeccably typeset, that COVER, and it’s a book I’m going to be cherishing for a really long time.
Hearts is the story of Linda Reissman, a dance teacher suddenly widowed from her husband of only six weeks who has to overcome her fear of driving in order to deliver her sullen 13-year-old stepdaughter, Robin, from their former home in New Jersey to her father’s relatives in Iowa, and who, along the journey, discovers she is pregnant. Linda is just 27, and has never—metaphorically or otherwise—occupied the driver’s seat in her own life. Once she’s dropped Robin off, she has vague dreams of arriving in California, but everything else about her future is still undefined, her pregnancy putting all that possibility into jeopardy.
It’s remarkable to be reading this novel now at a moment in which Linda’s abortion in Iowa would be illegal. While it’s devastating to consider just how far we’ve regressed in the 45 years since Hearts was first published, how much American women have lost, I suspect that Wolitzer is not completely surprised, because the signs of the unmaking progress are already there in 1980, less than a decade after Roe vs. Wade. The abortion clinic is swarmed by furious protesters, and a terrible act of violence takes place during Linda’s procedure. The law might be settled, but the people are not.
Hearts is set during a weird time in America that has strong parallels to right now, in addition to the abortion issue—the economy is a mess, oil prices are wild, the Middle East is in crisis. And this—along with Howard Johnsons and motel pools—is the backdrop as Linda and Robin undertake their journey, getting to something particular about the moment, but something essential too about the American Dream, and what it promises to women. Neither of them is especially prone to drama, and they spend a lot of their journey not talking, the narrative brisk and even, moving between their different perspectives, underlining how much they each get wrong about the other, and showing them growing closer as they make their way.
I loved this book, whose story felt as fresh and pristine as my gorgeous first edition, the kind of book I looked forward to picking up again all day once I’d started reading, a double coming-of-age story about womanhood and chosen family, funny, poignant, and real.
